Life would be truly boring if it was like this. And we would all become ignorantslaves, unable to figure out even the simplest task, because everything was all ways done for us, "automatically" . We would become a society of ignorant and useless creatures. Only capable of doing what some automated machine permitted us to do. There all ready are way to many people that can not use search engines, because they are to ignorant and lazy to think of the best key words, and countless people can not follow simple instructions, because they only know how to "click" the little icon, and the rest is done automatically. Countless people now a days can not even do the basic multiplication tables in their head, with out a calculator. A zombie, that can not do anything besides sit and watch a video over and over, is not my idea of being free, and the burden on society is heavy, somebody has to feed and care for them. How many people even know how to plow a field and plant a seed so they can have food to eat ? None of the slaves to automation know, they only know to eat what the machine tells them to, and allows them to. That is not my idea of freedom.

Last edited by GarryRicketson on 2017-09-20 10:40, edited 1 time in total.

GarryRicketson wrote:And we would all become ignorantslaves, unable to figure out even the simplest task, because everything was all ways done for us, "automatically" . We would become a society of ignorant and useless creatures.

To be fair to the man, those were different times. He probably wanted to say that working hard will make a world better place more than being a useless smartass. Of course, we may never know what is the truth. In a way, people that work hard are hard to come by these days. Most of them like to play smart all the time and ignore what others tell them. So we come to sort of a paradox: man is neither working hard, nor thinking for himself.

It's not just that, but actually working on something is the only way of gaining experience. With experience, often comes knowledge.

Wheelerof4te wrote:To be fair to the man, those were different times. He probably wanted to say that working hard will make a world better place more than being a useless smartass. Of course, we may never know what is the truth. In a way, people that work hard are hard to come by these days. Most of them like to play smart all the time and ignore what others tell them. So we come to sort of a paradox: man is neither working hard, nor thinking for himself.It's not just that, but actually working on something is the only way of gaining experience. With experience, often comes knowledge.

Like many things in life, technology is a double-edged sword. By default, technology's power gets usurped for evil, simply due to basic human nature. Just read the headlines every day for examples of what I am talking about. Do you use technology, or does technology use you? Sadly, the latter is true for the majority people wandering around with their noses buried in an aptly-named smartphone. The phone is smarter than they are, or at best, they are not aware of being used by the social media, marketing and sales juggernauts presenting us with the digitized world we live in today. My phone has ALL notifications turned off - sometimes the ringer as well. I don't need a smartphone on top of the many other things and people always driving me in different directions.

That's just one example. It's up to the people who know what's going on to stay the course for rational technology development. I don't believe we are in crises mode just yet, but it sure seems that way sometimes. If Rockefeller were alive running Amazon today, he might say something like "I don't want a nation of shoppers, I want a nation of buyers."

I would tend to look at the brighter side. If machines relieved us of the burden of mindless, repetitive drudgery, the education system would be training people to do tasks that machines can't do. The human "computers" that laboriously calculated trajectories for the early space programs or artillery ballistics have been replaced by machines that can do the same task in a second. (yes, Ii'm aware, GIGO, and of the crashed Mars lander--that's something that humans still need to be trained to oversee). We don't need to train apprentices to grind maize in stone metates or chew hides to tenderize them any longer.

Maybe science can come up with intelligence boosters to aid the dull portion of humanity that just can't hack the new world, otherwise many will be left behind.

The MATE dictionary, which I have a launcher for in the upper panel of my Mate desktop, among other definitions for burden, gives:

2. That which is borne with labor or difficulty; that which is grievous, wearisome, or oppressive. [1913 Webster]

Who wants that? A burden is, by definition, tedious, repetitive and boring so freedom from burden brought about by automation will surely give folks time for other interesting activities though many people may not know what to do with their new-found free time except, for instance, slouching in front of their TV set or playing with their smartphones with their time being consumed by whatever is put in front of them. This is the contemporary equivalent of "bread and circuses" which were put on for the populace of Ancient Rome to keep them occupied except that, occasionally, someone like Spartacus didn't buy it.

stevepusser wrote:We don't need to train apprentices to grind maize in stone metates or chew hides to tenderize them any longer.

Maybe YOU don't.

Awhile back, my friend showed me this video, which articulates a techtopia. I don't necessarily agree with the conclusions, although I do believe technology is pressuring normal people to prioritize creativity and judgment, rather than rote memorization and context-less understandings. The flip-side to the autocorrect dilemma is that students now have greater access to a wealth of information; so, while my uncle might be more vigilant about correcting his grammar, he can't judge the difference between sensationalized media and legitimate journalism.

I'll steal Fisch and McLeod's words: “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist...using technologies that haven’t been invented...in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” I think it's the way we teach technology that will end up making the difference.

Semi-related: how do you guys feel about CodeAcademy?

bester69 wrote:There is nothing to install in linux, from time to time i go to google searching for something fresh to install in linux, but, there is nothing

You should really then read Vernor Vinge's SF novel Rainbows End, a major plot line follows this issue. In the near future, successful nations have passed through a disruptive time of technological advances, and now scarcity is a thing of the past due to automated factories and food production. Nations that have not kept up for various ideological reasons are having a pretty tough go, though. In America, technological progress keeps ramping up on the way to the Singularity, and some kids are having to resort to new smart drugs just to keep pace with their peers. New therapies for the elderly are in some cases reversing the aging process: for the lucky ones, the whole body, but often just for the brain, so it regains the learning plasticity of youth. The protagonist was was a whisker short of dying of Alzheimer's before being rejuvenated, then being slipstreamed into high school, along with other less extreme "retreads", in order to get a modern education.

What utter twaddle. Freed from the monotony of performing simple tasks like resizing image files, one is able to occupy one's time with more engaging concerns, not less engaging.

If your life was more automated, you could learn a language (e.g. how to spell words like 'boring') but instead you're repeating actions over and over that a computer could be doing with lightning efficiency and for some reason you think it's a good thing.